Your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts
5/7/20--On today's episode we're joined by special guest Irene Li, co-founder and owner of Mei Mei in Boston. She talks about the response to the coronavirus pandemic in the restaurant industry at large, and how things look for her eatery in particular. “We know that we are going to weather this thing, even though we don’t know what the other side will look like.”
Mei Mei is one of many Boston restaurants now selling groceries after the city made it legal two weeks ago. Consumers can pick up a variety of items that might be out of stock at grocery stores. Li says, “Sometimes somebody will come in just for dumplings and 4 rolls of toilet paper. Other times they’ll buy a $45 grocery box that has eggs and butter and different veggies, flour and yeast.”
The social distancing orders have put a strain on restaurants' bottoms lines and have forced Li and other owners to get creative. “It’s all about thinking about new ways to connect with our guests.” Like making Mei Mei's in-person dumpling-making classes into virtual ones, about which she says, “We are selling those tickets out faster than we can put them up on our website."
In case you missed it, Wednesday, May 6 marked the first day that mask-wearing became mandatory in the state of Massachusetts. Governor Baker's order applies to anyone "who is in a place open to the public in the Commonwealth, whether indoor or outdoor, and is unable or does not maintain a distance of approximately six feet from every other person."
We're looking at an extremely crowded field vying for the Massachusetts 4th District congressional seat. A ruling put forth last month by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cut in half the number of signatures required to get on the primary ballot. As a result, a whopping 10 Democrats and 1 Republican have qualified for the primary.
This week on The Horse Race, a routine audit uncovers an accounting error that could cost the state billions. And we’ll take a closer look at the …
This week on The Horse Race, the push to bring back happy hour gets another shot on Beacon Hill and plans for the machine gun range on Cape Cod draw fire from residents and the …
This week on The Horse Race, we've got two new MPG polls to discuss and two new MPG polling experts to introduce to our listening audience! Research …
This week on The Horse Race, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins calls it quits amid federal investigations into her conduct. We’re …
This week on The Horse Race, we’ve got chaos in the council chambers and a new 56 billion dollar spending plan at the State House. All that, plus …
This week on The Horse Race, we’re looking at elections. They weren’t races so much, but they were elections as strictly defined. We'll also sift through a new survey of Boston Public …
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